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Bayit Yehudi split on new conversion courts

The announcement on Monday of a new independent network of conversion courts by a group of senior national-religious rabbis has seemingly divided Bayit Yehudi with party chairman Naftali Bennett expressing cautious support for the step while Deputy Minister of Defense Eli Ben-Dahan heavily criticized the move on Tuesday morning.

The new conversion courts, called Giur K’halacha and headed by Rabbi Nahum Rabinowitz, are a response by mainstream national-religious rabbis to what they believe is the failure of the chief rabbinate to deal with the threat of Jewish intermarriage posed by approximately 330,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not considered Jewish according to Jewish law.